DIVIDED ATTENTION

Capacity to pay attention to several sources of information. It’s about competition between stimulus
because we are trying to do at least 2 tasks at the same time and we often fail while doing that.

Experiments about divided attention asked to do two tasks at the same time and the results say that our
attention capacity is limited, they finish paying attention to just one task. The more complex the task is
the more effort demands on and the task that is easier to us is the one that we automatically are going to
pay attention to.
• Ex: Is not the same receiving a class in English or receiving it in Spanish because we need to do
more effort to keep the attention in English. If we have to write an essay and we also have the tv
on, if the program is on tv is complex we are going to just pay attention on one of them
(depending our priorities)

Allocation policy where do we allocate our resources to pay attention:

• Enduring dispositions is that we pay attention to whatever is going to help us to survive. If we
are doing an essay and we listen fire, our attention is going directly to the fire
• Momentary intention is about the goal. if we want to learn we are going to pay attention to
the class if we don’t we will do another thing. The more automatic the task becomes, the less
effort it will require

STRUCTURAL LIMITS
Divided attention is limited by something called interference. Something is on our way to perform the
task. Depending on the sensory modality (the two tasks are equal on features are going to interfere more
than if there are different), the difficulty and the practice (the more we practice and more automatic it
becomes, the less interference)
• Ex: When we are writing an essay if we have not the phone in silence mode with every ring we
are going to get distracted.
• Ex sensory modality: We are writing an essay we need internal resources (letter words, grammar,
English) and at the same time we are trying to listen to the news (letters, words, grammar,
English). It is going to be very difficult to pay attention to both because they are very similar
(interference +)
• Ex practice: We are driving home, if we already know el path we are going to be able to listen to
music but if it is the first time we can’t listen to music because the interference is bigger, and we
need more cognitive resources

Some researchers said the attention is not divided; we are task switching all the time.
if our attention would be divided we probably would be able to search for the X and
stars but if we switch we are not able. Switching the tasks means that your mind has a
mental set that facilitates or inhibits your response, and the switch cost is lower
performance, the more you switch the worst you perform the task.
• Ex: if you are writing an essay and you get distracted with Instagram your
essay will have less quality

ACQUIRED CAPACITY
Neisser said that the more you practice your attention, the better you get so you can practice and improve
your performance when you are paying attention to 2 stimuli. He said this t because he found that a lot
of people had difficulties to pay attention for a long time but that can be improved. The more we practice
is easier because we use mental resources and if we get better in one task, the next new task is going to
be easier because we already have the previous one improved.

APPLICATIONS OF DIVIDED ATENTION

1. If we are driving for the first time we are not going to be doing our makeup because it is not going
to be easy or if it is raining we are going to pay attention more than if is sunny because it is
necessary to control the car in that situation.
2. When we drive we can’t control the car if we are using the phone. Even if we use the hands-free
device because our cognitive resources are into the driving task and also into the call so we lose
half of the visual details.

STROOP
We cannot ignore the meaning of the stimuli presented. We have higher reaction times when the meaning
is not congruent with the colour of the ink because we need more cognitive resources and the more
cognitive resources we are using the higher your reaction time is going to be. This is because we have to
inhibit one of the information in order to perform the task

SUSTAINED ATTENTION

The ability to maintain attention to a particular stimulus or location for prolonged periods of time. It is
more about time than the task. Sustained attention is vigilance but also to be concentrated, it gives us the
capacity to do monotonous and repetitive boring task during a 30
minutes • Boring task
long time.
• Gets distrated: was bored and tired
1 hour • Tired-> Very important task so you use
It came on the world war II because the soldiers had to be many cognitive resources

attending to one screen that was the radar. They had to pay Tired-> more errors
attention to the same stuff for a long time.

In 1948 Marckworth came with a task to measure vigilance. He asked participants to see a clock for two
hours and the clock moved 7000 times and 48 of those were double. He asked participants to pay
attention and detect those double moves and just half an hour later the efficacy and accuracy got lower,
making more errors. If the subject does something different for a short time (have a coffee, receive a call)
the performance is recovered but after half an hour it decreases again. That’s why it’s hard to pay
attention in class.

FACTORS THAT AFFECT

Arousal: Excitation of brain areas. The level of alertness to respond to the environmental
stimulation and explore the environment in a quick and efficient way. The brain part involved is
the reticular formation, that connects the brain to your final court. It sends information to the
brain(to respond) and also to the body (for motion), but it also receives information from your
eyes and your ears.
Allows to respond to change in the environment that occur randomly. At first it generates an
orientation response, a reflex (if you are missing the bus you start running). If the information
that we are receiving is boring it’s going to be harder to keep the attention and respond. I it is a
new stimulus the arousal will be high because you need many cognitive resources but if you get
used to it, the less arouse you are going to be. (For example, habituation-> to fall sleep)
• Signal: It is known that is easier to sustain our attention to auditory stimulus rather than visual
(for a lot of people is easier to pay attention to audios). It is also easier to pay attention to
 something that is not frequent (it is easier to pay attention to the video than to the explanation).
Irregular presentation is that is unpredictable (if the class is always in that way if a gorilla appears
one day we are just going to pay attention to the gorilla).
• Sleep: While we are sleeping or resting it helps our memory and it helps to process all the
information that we receive form our senses. The less you sleep, the worse performance you
have, specially at the end. With the sleep deprivation (deprive people sleeping) the more days
they stood without sleeping, the worst their performance it was. The more difficult the task, the
higher the effect it is because you haven’t rested enough so you can’t have hundred percent on
your cognitive resources (if it is a difficult task the options to get slept is easier). If you are getting
asleep, external stimulation helps to perform.
• Stress: We can have stress if the temperatures are extreme, it is going to be harder to pay
attention if we are cold because our attention is concentrated on that, because the survival
mechanism always goes first. To do that our brain with our body releases the cortisone levels
(stress levels) the more we use the stress system in our body, the more tired we are going to be.
If we keep the cortisone levels high, it is going to be harder to relax and if your stress hormones
keep higher, it is going to be harder to have a deep sleeping.
Noise: When we are in a very noisy environment it makes very difficult to concentrate in a task
(attending to classes)
• Feedback: it works specially in the educational/working field because giving feedback is telling
someone how he/she performed. When you are giving a feedback to someone is going to be
easier to remember the feedback if the explanation is: auditory > written// comments>
numbers// focus in the positive aspects first > negative

Information about how
Informational hypotesis
to do the task
hypothetically help
people to improve
performance

Better performance

If the individual is not

Personal drive to to the
Motivational hypotesis interested on doing the
task better
task, he won't do it

Between those two the informational hypothesis works better in sustained attention because, if
you are doing a task that you don’t like, but the professor tells you how you are improving, maybe
that is going to be a new drive to perform the task you didn’t like at the beginning.

ATTENTIONAL ISSUES

There is the inability to detect the changes or the substitution of objects. Prevalence report of children
who have disease, the relation of this deficit with sustained attention and how it can be improved.

Schoolchildren with better attention will achieve better school outcomes, develop a better socio-
emotional adaptation. If you feel that no one helps you and that you can’t count in nobody to those
children is more difficult to pay attention and learn in class because they feel lonely.

The brain arousal (Information going to the brain and going to the body) it is a good predictor of
mathematic results and intelligence test score.

UNIT 6:THINKING

There are two modes of thoughts, propositional thoughts and imaginal thoughts.

Imaginal thoughts the images we can see in our minds

Propositional thought is all about the stream of sentences that sometimes we can hear in our minds and
always expresses a claim or a statement. It’s always about the stream of sentences. It works a lot with
concepts.

CONCEPT

A concept represents an entire class. It is the set of properties that we associate with a particular class. It
helps you to group all the similar object people ideas into one same category and It helps to make sense
of the world.

FUNCTIONS
cognitive economy makes us the world manageable because when we speak we are using concepts. If we
would not have them every time that we would make a sentence it would be necessary to explain each
word (which colour I’m speaking about). We don’t treat every concept as a unit we are using every time.
We also have mental representations of everything we talk about.

Categorization. Helps us to categorize all the objects, Is the process of assigning an object to a concept. Is
to take the properties of a new object and we compare them to the ones of an old object. We compare
the characteristics that we can see but also the ones that we cannot see.

They help us to predict information. They allow us to predict information that is not readily perceived
and enable us to go beyond directly information. The information about how an object is supposed to
look like is telling me something. We also have concepts about activities (eating), states (being old),
abstractions (respect). The concepts we have about abstractions are very personal and almost always they
come from personal situations.

Concepts also lead us to prototypes. Is all about a typical instance of a person, a situation… it gives us a
mental image or pinnacle example of that object. If the objects have very different features, to
differentiate them, we need a more elaborate process. We can find objects that are very different in the
same category, but those different objects will always have the same core feature because this is
necessary to be part of a classification. When we are talking about concepts and prototypes, it is about
the set of properties but it’s because the core feature. the core feature is what is saying you that the
objects is part of that group.

Acquire the concepts: we do learn the concepts and some of the concepts are specifically taught to us,
but we mostly learn through experience are prototypes. Around the age of ten we know the final
arbitrator (this belongs to an apple or this belongs to a peach.) The prototype is all about the set of
properties that tells you that maybe that object belongs to a certain classification, but the core is telling
you that that feature of the object belongs to that category is the decisive criteria.

REASONING, HEURISTICS AND ALGORYTHMS ALLOW US TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

PROBLEM SOLVING
Solving problems is a process through with an individual or a group attempts to find effective means to
solve a problem or cope with it and it has a lot of ways to do it. There are a lot of strategies and some of
those strategies can be performed in an individual level and some others in group, it would depend on
the situation demand A problem is a conflictive situation for which there is no immediate solution. First
time you deal with a situation
ALGORYTHM:
You use a lot of methods and you follow steps.

1. You set which is the problem Ex: I want tequila and I don’t have it
2. You collect data. Ex: you look for all the places you can go to buy it
3. Analyze the causes Ex: the Latino’s supermarket can have tequila because Mexicans do
consume it
4. Create the plan Ex: If I can’t find it in the Latino’s I will go to el Corte ingles
5. Evaluate effects Ex: where is going to be cheaper? Latinos or el corte ingles

When we are doing this, we are collecting data during all the process

REASONING:
The process of inferring something it is making conclusions.

1. Deductive. I have all the general information and come to a particular object
2. Inductive: I take specific characteristics for a lot of things and I then come with the general
idea. At the first time the strategy worked, the second time it also did so I think that the next
situation will also be solved with the same strategy because the individual situations were
solved

But we can have conclusion error. That means that the conclusion does not follow from the
premises. Ex: many men have beards and many Islamic terrorist have beards, so I came to the
conclusion that man with beards are Islamic terrorists

Confirmation bias its all about you paying attention and only receiving the information that feedbacks
your ideas. that’s why we have friends that have the same ideas and values as you because it supports
your ideas

Hindsight bias its like the future. The persons looks bac and assumes he knew it all long ( I knew X thing
will happen)

HEURISTICS
Most of times we solve problems through reasoning and algorithm, but heuristic is more like an intuitive
thinking so it can help with the problem solving. It’s all about your intuition (I think tequila should be in
the alley in which there are the alcoholic drinks) when we do that is a short cut procedure because we
don’t go with all the algorithm or reasoning but to what our intuition tells us. It can lead to correct
answers, but they can’t always be dependable.

• Trial and error: you try something and if it doesn’t work the next time you will maybe try
something different. It’s all about experience
• Means ends analysis: in a rapid way you analyze that if you do A you get B consequences. If you
do X you maybe you get D consequences but it’s all again about intuition.
• Retrograde analysis: If you have a new problem, you go backward to what you need, from the
last thing you did to the first thing you did to solve the situation
• By analogy to another problem
THINKING ERRORS: CREATING PROBLEMS

Thinking errors instead of solving problems they create them.

BELIEF PERSEVERANCE
It’s the tendency to cling to initial conceptions or beliefs despite proof to the contrary. although the facts
are telling you it is the opposite, you continue with your idea.
• Ex: Google maps is telling you to turn right but you think that it is wrong you turn to left, even the
facts are saying you to turn right.

When you try to give new information that is the opposite to the persons believes can become very
defensive.

FIXATION
Along with the first one, if you are perseverant per se you are going to be fixated on your one perspective
about the situation. It happens a lot of times in very simple situations and it helps us to solve the situation
because we approach to the situation with the same mental set. we learn the mental set because our
previous experiences. You are going to learn what you have been seeing through your life. Fixation is all
about the mind set which is very difficult to change because that is fixation.

Ex: If you want to pound a nail, you are going to search for a hammer because it is the first thing it comes
to your mind. But if you don’t have a hammer you can search for a rock because both can be useful. You
are going to search for a rock plana.

THE AVALIABILITY HEURISTICS

Heuristics can create problems instead of solving them because we are remembering the positive
situations more than the negative ones.

The availability heuristics is the information that is available and easy to grab in our mind. As it is easy to
grab, whatever has a salient stimulus is related to fears and awesomeness is easier to held. The features
to remember something are always available in our mind that means availability and heuristics means
that the.

Availability heuristics is always about a salient stimulus that is always in our mind, I’m not going to forget
that feature because it is a factual information that transcended our threshold. Every sense has a
threshold and every stimulus that transcends that threshold will keep recorded in your mind. Availability
heuristics are creating problems because we overestimate the memories when we have one.

• Ex: addiction because you remember the times you won but not all the ones you lost at.

AFFECT HEURISTICS
Is about affection and the halo effect that is created. The halo effect it’s about overestimating not the
meaning but the positive capacities and the characteristics of a person. The other one is about the
overestimation of rewards, is all about the information I have and the most times we are led by the first
impressions.

FRAMING
How you present the information for the people and how you set the information significantly affects the
way you make decision. Ex: the last data, million person has more impact than 2%.

THINKING SYSTEMS

Daniel Kahneman Two systems of thinking: fast thinking and slow thinking

System n 1: fast thinking System n 2: slow thinking

Automatic Deliberate
Effortless Effortful

Cannot be turned out Controls

Seeks coherence: simple stories… even with no But the brain is lazy: minimizes effort
evidence

Uses heuristics, that may create biases Often unconsciously guided by system 1:
rationalizes the decisions
Perception Reasoning (statistical reasoning)
Memory Problem solving
Expert intuitive thought (Based on skill) Decision making
Heuristic intuitive thought (based on biases) Creativity
System n1: its all about survival, it is automatic, and you react without thinking about it. You don’t need
to make efforts because its automatic and every automatic mechanism needs less cognitive effort. It can’t
not be turned out; it is always on you don’t think about it is always there. It’s always about simple
situation, very limited capacities. It uses heuristics that’s why we don’t think when we react. System
number 1 uses your perception, what you are perceiving in the moment. If we have to take the final exams
the students are going to be more stressed because we feel exams as a threat. It is about intuitive thought,
but it is also based on skill (if you are good at memorizing you probably won’t be so worried as if you are
bad at memorizing. it is based on biases, so it makes lot of errors because it uses the heuristics

System n2 its deliberate and requires a lot of effort because you need to think about the situation. It can
control fast thinking but just if you want if you make that choice. You have to be conscious that you are
using system number two. The brain is lazy, so it minimizes the effort because it use our concepts believes,
learnings that we store in our mind to work with n2. Whenever you have a new situation system n2 is the
slave of system n1. system 1 thinks fast and it tells you that you are in danger but then system number
two comes that takes the time, analyses the options and tells you what you have to do. It is based in
reasoning (statistical reasoning) its asking about the information you need a lot of information you can
rely on so you can make your choices.

Both systems are active mode when we are awake but when we are sleeping just system 1 is active
because is all about surviving and it is necessary to perceive the information. When we are using both
system we don’t use the whole capacity of both of the system, we are using like a half of the capacity of
system 2. When system 1 runs into difficulty( has no answer for the question or a event violates the model
of the world that s.1 maintains it calls on system 2 to support more detailed processing). But sometimes
system number 2 as relies in our believes, leads us to thinking errors that are those ways of functioning
problems(heuristics)
LANGUAGE

Thinking and language are very related because language comes you to organize your ideas, language
express your thinking. We are not born with language; we have to go through many stages. Language is a
set of spoken, written or signed words and the way we combine them to communicate a meaning.

With those characteristics we don’t defer from other species (we are not different from monkeys) they
also use language (sounds and hormones). Human beings are different from all the organisms because
the language we use is complex and we use our brain and body to communicate.

We create language in three building blocks.:

1. Phonemes: very short and are specific sound for each language. There are the basic sound, and
each letter has a distinctive sound. There is the option to the same letter to have a different
sound
2. Morphemes smallest units that carry meaning. there are divided in prefix and suffix and have
sound and also have meaning
3. Words

RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE LANGUAGE

Acquiring a language is not a fast process and we are not born with it. All goes to the receptive and
productive language.

Receptive language is the ability to understand by using the mouth movements and sounds. There are
some stages in this step:

1. Babbling: the first stage of trying to produce any language, trying to reproduce the sounds of his
take carers (Balbucear)
2. One word: Age 1 to 2 they learn the first word. It is usually “no” because it is the word it is most
repeated. 18 months they pass from learning 1 word per week to 1 word per day.
3. Two-word age. Produce nouns and verbs that key words (want ice cream, mum play)

Productive it’s the ability to produce the speech that will come after this process.

UNIT 7: MOTIVATION AND EMOTION

MOTIVATION

Motivation it’s a condition, a kind of energy that directs your behaviour towards something. You may
approach or redraw from the situation. Motivation can be conscious (you are aware you are hungry; you
are getting fired) but there are lot of desires that we are not aware of (we think we are hungry but he are
thirsty. Motivation is many times caused by physiological events that means that brain and body are
working at the same time. When we have lack of glucose the body tells us that we are hungry.
MOTIVATION THEORIES
Motivation may be intrinsic or extrinsic, there are more but most of the theories are about those two.

Intrinsic motivation Extrinsic motivation

Motives/ needs Goals
Broad Specific
Frequently implicit Usually explicit
Personal traits Situational
Personality studies Social psychology studies
Internal drives Motivational role of external events and objects
of desire
Motivation controls behaviours The nature pulls us to diff directions
Physiological needs, hormonal states Incentives=rewards=reinforcements
Activities itself pleasurable Behaviour=means to avoid or receive a reinforcer
Behaviour= interesting and satisfying in itself Behaviour= not itself interesting or satisfying
Behaviour=not a mean
Intrinsic motivation is all about your own motives and intentions and also the needs. Most of the time is
broad, you have a lot of options and motivation, a lot of times it implicit, you don’t really know but there
is there. its many times related to the personal traits (shy, rely with a lot of people, meditation…). There
are us personality studies (self-reports). Motivation controls your behaviour (you do because you want
example physiological needs, you need to pee, you can’t choose). Activities are itself rewarding (attending
class may be itself rewarding because you acquire knowledge. The behaviour is rewarding enough
(extrovert person is rewarding to talk with many people/introverts not rewarding talking with two or three
people is enough).

Extrinsic motivation is all about goals, it is an outer drive. Its specific if you have a goal to pursue its always
related to the situation usually explicit because is out of you. Extrinsic a specific goal and explicitly right
there it goes with the situation. There are used social psychology studies. The behaviour is controlled by
the motivation that may be a reward (ex: if you want a hamburger but that’s your choice you can eat also
a salad, but you want hamburger. The behaviour is not rewarding enough.

OVERJUSTIFICATION EFFECT
The external reward becomes the justification for performing. At the beginning you attended all the
training but then you lost interest on that. Even though, you know that having a salary for that is good for
you so you continue attending just for the salary.

That happens because we codify that the reward is superior to what you had before so to overcome it,
you have to do the cognitive reinterpretation (le buscas otro sentido) if I attend class it will be easier to
pass the exam it’s all about how I interpretate and codify the situation and the meaning.

EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION REINFORCERS

We have two types of reinforcers
PRIMARY REINFORCES
It’s all about that it is rewarding itself without having to learn that it is a reward, so if you are hungry and
thirsty a salad or a glass of water will be a reinforcement. There are innate responses, we didn’t had to
lean it is rewarding.

SECONDARY REINFORCES
Secondary reinforces have to be learned. Getting a good grade, it’s because society has told that a good
grade is that the person is intelligent or you get a scholarship, not because it is rewarding itself. It has to
be learned probably saying that someone said, “oh your cousin always gets good grades”.

One important rewarding is recognition, we all desire being recognized (because we have done a good
job., because we are a good son…) This happens because our brain is hijacked due to the dopamine, a
neurotransmitter. A neurotransmitter is a kind of liquid that is transmitted form one neuron to other to
process all the information we are surrounded by. all the time. It has been related with the rewards,
whenever you receive recognition, money, drink more alcohol the brain gets hijacked. If you try maria
once and it was pleasant enough, the levels of dopamine that you released were higher than the regular
days, when you try cocaine the dopamine increases more and the same happens with heroine.

The rewards is all about our interpretations because our interpretations we release the dopamine levels.
it goes all the way up to the thalamus, associated with the production of dopamine and also with the
frontal lobe because there happens the reinterpretation of rewards. The reward sense happens because
something goes on in your brain and it’s about dopamine and the reinterpretation of the reward.

PUNISHMENT
A little part of the brain that is the amygdala is also responsible for the association that we make for the
punishment. We are a specie that our brain and body it’s all about surviving, approaching pleasant things
and avoiding unpleasant things. Many of those things happen because we do a reinterpretation of the
punishment and the amygdala is one of the brain areas that is responsible for that.

Two more systems related to the amygdala and work hand to hand:

• HPA axis (produce cortisol the stress hormone) HPA axis goes from the hypothalamic. What
happens when you see a threat it may be a interpretation or a real threat, the prefrontal low
codifies the situation and sends a signal to the amygdala. This gets activated and it sends a signal
to hippocampus and the cortisone hormones get activated (prepares you to run or fight for
avoiding the situation).
• Sympathetic Nervous System (produce adrenaline): Is the one that keeps you alert and the
function is to keep alive. The more stressed the more susceptible you are to stare to anything
because it doesn’t work alone, he has to receive the sign from the amygdala to say that you are
in danger. In order to say we are in danger we have two ways.
1. Actually, we have a threat (we have a lion)
2. Interpretation: afraid speak in the oral presentation we are going to make signals (hart beat,
sweat)

DRIVE AND HOMEOSTASIS

Body and brain always look to the set point. every time a threaten situation if you are constantly thinking
that you are living a threaten situation is it is very hard for you also to remember the information. In the
case of people with hypertension, the illness appears after a long process in which he/she was getting
stressed more and more every time. That’s because the first response is an innate response but because
cortisone is a very hard hormone than your body is constantly releasing, because you constantly feel you
are under a threat. That makes your heart to beat so hard all the time and you have sleep deprivation.
Sleep deprivation makes hard to process the information cognitively, hard to memorize. One of the ways
to deal with this is your interpretation of the situation (is really threatening or is that I’m feeling that
everyone is going to judge me?)

IMPLICIT MOTIVATION THEORIES

HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

One of the most studied proposals is the hierarchy of needs that is represented in a pyramid. It is not a
pyramid; it is a hierarchy:

1. physiological needs self

actualization
2. safety needs
esteem needs
3. belonging to a group. Feel that you are not alone
4. esteem needs: feeling recognize and you accomplish belonging to a group

important things safety needs

5. self-actualizations achieve one of the most important

physiological needs
objective in your life.

When a person that already has a good salary and knows that he/she is going to have that contract until
he/she dies and he/she belongs to something bigger, his motivation is going to decrease because the basic
needs are already satisfied. If a person feels that that person is achieving things that he/she thought
he/she wouldn’t achieve and her work is being recognized she is going to be satisfied because she is having
a reward.

SELF DETERMINATION

Also about need but about three basic needs

1. competence: these persons are very competitive and their motivation is that they need to be
efficient and be the firsts. The need to be the first to complete the task and they make everyone
around them to be competitive.
2. Autonomy: having the power to decide, move things, work with whoever they want, having the
power to make decisions for the group. Sometimes they can be very authoritarians because they
have the need to have power, is about controlling the most variables they can
3. Relatedness: Need to have social interaction, being in touch with people. That is rewarding.

We have a group student and two students they are asked to work in groups or working alone:

• Competence: chooses to work alone because he/she doesn’t trust nobody else
• Autonomy: in group because he/she wants to be the leader and want to give directions
to everyone, wants to have the control.
• relatedness: in group because wants to interact with other people.
The last two choose the same option but the motivation to do so is different. Maybe in people we can see
a lot of similar behaviours but the motivation to do so is different.
EMOTIONS

The difference between emotions and feelings, is because emotions are psychophysiological states that
adapt to the situation because we perceive a certain stimulation, they last just very few seconds or
minutes. If you require to that sadness all the time, you may be under depression, which becomes a state
of the person. Emotions are psychophysiological states of our bodies and minds that adapt to the situation
because we perceive a specific stimuli. Emotions are a response to a stimulus; they don’t occur just
because and so on, they help us to survive because they also allow us to communicate and to cooperate.

They are not unique to human beings; a lot of species also experience emotions because emotions help
us to survive. When you are angry with somebody, is a way of setting a limit and not allowing someone
to cross it. It has various facets because it is not the same experience in the first or in the second and it
helps a lot to recognize which is the emotion you are experiencing

IS EMOTION UNIVERSAL OR IT VARIES DEPENDING ON THE COUNTRY ?

The first study says that emotions are universal is based in Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Emotions allow
us to survive and to communicate but because they are psychophysiological they have two components,
Emotions are universal because each emotion involves brain areas, nervous systems and it is an automatic
reaction. The first study showed this expressions to people (anger, joy surprise, disgust, sadness, fear…)
and it evidenced that all the participants showed the same reaction towards those emotions. After lot of
decades scientists showed we have different emotions. We experience disgust sadness and anger towards
things that four us are repugnant,

However, in the study in the right they showed a ephemerae. They asked people to perform a task
showing the expression while they were at the scanner and it showed that people process the other’s
emotions in different way. Japanese people show less emotion normally and the scan showed that their
brain also reacted less.

This studies show two things, emotions are biologically processed in the same way in every human beings
and second, there’s a cultural component and an individual component too because it depends on the
interpretation you give and your prefrontal lobe
TABLA EMOTIONS

REACTION TO THE EMOTIONS

A lot of us have similar reaction in faces and body, it doesn’t matter if you are from the states or Spain,
the reactions are the same but the difference is the interpretation and appreciation you make of the
situation. Another variable for emotions is the social queue. Let’s say you have a question for the professor
and the answer is indifference and just one day he/she is super kind, those reactions will make you to ask
the question or not, if it is indifference you will move away and if it is kind you will ask the question. The
reaction in front of that response is created due to the social cues

Emotions also process in our body. The emotion causes differences in the body, they can have facial and
body expressions very similar (you cry in anger and sadness) and that has a neurobiological reaction in
the amygdala that processes the fear, It’s all about our own interpretation.

The heart rate increases because more blood is popped up to the brain so you oxygen the muscles and
they get prepared to react to the threat, because is all about surviving. In an experiment the participants
were shown different photos that showed emotions and in the results, every person toward one of those
images evidenced a heart rate increased or decreased and also their temperature increased or decreased.
Emotions serve us to communicate with others and the facial expressions are universal in emotions they
convey and they also give us social cues. The social cues its about the information you get from the body
and the facial expressions of other people in order to engage in a social interaction

The capacity to connect with your body and to connect with what your body’s felling is called
interoception. Interoception is an ability that human beings have, someone’s is very developed and
other’s is weak. The more develop the interoception it is, the easier is to connect with your body feelings
have very developed and others is weak.

ATTACHMENT THEORY
Another important part of the emotional world. We all look for comfort and security and mostly, when
we explore a new situation we need a lot of comfort and security (when we move from our comfort zone
we are going to search for that). Attachment is when you need somebody you rely on, which is important
in order not to feel lonely and for our mental health, because you belong to somebody. It is everywhere
in every human community and in order to have a healthy attachment we need to have the perception
that the figure who is going to give me the comfort, is going to be available all the time. It’s not necessary
that person to be present every time is that you know you can count on them. The second component is
about yourself and that you perceive that you are worthy of receiving that security and comfort. the
studies conducted found 3 attachment

• Ambivalent attachment: anxious. Anxiety is an anticipation fear, you are afraid of something
that it has not happened but your mind is telling you it can happen. The probability of happening
that dangerous situation, makes you anxious but you still want to approach to the social
interaction. You want to approach but you still want to do it
• Insecurely attached: avoidant. When you were a kid you didn’t feel that you had that support by
your side. And if you don’t have that support from your care givers, you are going to try to avoid
those situations that makes you uncomfortable and it makes you in danger (social, decision
making)
• securely attaches: little anxiety. You feel kind have the security to do a lot of things. If you make
a mistake is there still people that will support you. More independent, more secure to make
decisions and

The% of the population is anxious el 40% de la population is anxious or avoidant. This results tell us that
some families that left alone to their children in situations in which they need support. This can happen
because of work, because nowadays the world is more demanding than before and we need to fulfil all
the roles (at the same time that I am a daughter, I am also a student, a member of a team, a friend…). The
ones with anxiety didn’t had support or comfort but some develop an avoidant attitude and the ones with
the anxious attitude just try to cope with situations but expect a lot from the decisions of others, the
opinions of others

UNIT 8. PERSONALITY.

We don’t have a strict personality we have 5 and we move one to the other.

THEORIES

• Trait theory: specifically work trait. Personality stable in time and has lasting behaviour that are
conscious. Our personality traits are long-lasting and we are aware of our motivations and
motives to act in a certain way
• Allport. Personality also about traits but if there are fundamental. Those traits are basic in us and
it makes us who we are. The motivations to behave the way we behave we are conscious of the
motives
• Tupes and Christal: the big five. traits allow us to predict possible ways of the person behaviour
and those traits will also help us do predict if his/her performance is going to be good or not
• Bandura social cognitive perspective:. Our personality is the result of a reciprocal determinism.
Our personality is a result of our traits and our interaction with the world because we give
something to the world but we also receive information form the world, especially the social
world.